A few weeks ago, Ted Hope published a list of “good films” made for under $300,000 on his Hope for Film Substack. While it doesn’t adjust for inflation, it’s a striking snapshot of more than 100 scrappy cinematic beginnings like “Clerks,” “Laws of Gravity,” and “River of Grass,” and a reminder that a low budget doesn’t mean low impact.
Thanks to Reddit, I stumbled across another low-budget debut: “Real Life,” a feature made by 23-year-old Dallas filmmaker Julian Sol Jordan. It took nearly three years to finish and he estimates the cost around $4,500 — the price of a camera, a tripod, and some pizza and beer for friends. It premiered on YouTube last month after being rejected by 30 festivals.
To be fair, “Real Life” ticks a lot of festival red-flag boxes: It’s a hybrid documentary made by a recent college grad about his post-grad existential crisis, resolved through… making a film about his post-grad existential crisis.
However, Jordan’s film is a sparse, visually driven work that captures the limbo of early adulthood. Shot on a BlackMagic partially funded by a YoungArts grant (after eight failed tries), Jordan was director, cinematographer, editor, and subject. He filmed everything from fall 2022 to summer 2024, sneaking the camera into parties to avoid the performative “movie face” that surfaces when people know they’re on film.
Dialogue is minimal. Cinematography and editing are sharp. Frenetic, handheld scenes of Jordan’s friends guzzling handles of Tito’s at house parties give way to impressionistic passages of those same friends walking through a local nature preserve or pumping gas in the small hours before daylight.
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In fact, there’s an oddly timeless feel to “Real Life.” Social media and cell phones don’t figure into this world. “You see your life on a feed on a screen, and I think a lot of people my age feel this fear of like, ‘Oh, my life isn’t interesting enough,’” Jordan said.
So he made a movie about what doesn’t make it to Instagram. “Real Life” focuses on vulnerable moments: Losing his job, facing accumulating debt, a lecture from his landlord parents. It captures a moment when the plausible deniability of childhood is replaced by increasing anxiety that you haven’t qualified to be an adult.
Jordan also benefitted from a kind of nepotism by proxy: He has a long-running mentor in David Lowery, who’s currently in post on A24’s “Mother Mary.” Their connection traces back to the Dallas indie scene: Jordan’s mom was in “The Polyphonic Spree” with Lowery’s longtime producer Toby Halbrooks. A 13-year-old Jordan once cold-emailed Lowery asking to audition for “Peter Pan.” That turned into a decade-long correspondence and Lowery recently funded a local screening of Real Life at the Texas Theatre.
Getting passed over by hometown festivals like Oak Cliff and Dallas stung, but some programmers reached out personally to encourage him to keep going. Even Jordan admits the film may be “too personal.” But instead of retreating, he used it as a calling card to make connections with rising directors like Clint Bentley (“Train Dreams”), Albert Birney (“OBEX”), and Ethan Eng (“Therapy Dogs”).
“Real Life” is a testament to what’s possible when the urge to make something outweighs the need for permission. Yes, Jordan is part of a long Texas indie lineage — he evokes Jonathan Caouette (“Tarnation”), carries the drawl of the Wilson brothers, and owes a clear debt to Richard Linklater’s “Slacker.” (Or even its predecessor, “It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books.”) But what sets him apart is clarity about his generation, his limitations, and his intention to keep going.
“I think it’s just really important that especially people my generation are keeping movies alive,” he said. “It’s easier now more than ever to make a movie. If you really want to make stuff, work a summer, buy yourself a BlackMagic, and make a movie. Get your friend to do some music.” (That friend is Wolfgang Hunter, an impressive composer who also brings the film a moment of comic relief: “Don’t take this the wrong way, man, but when am I going to get to score something happy?”)
For a generation accused of chasing views and cutting corners, Real Life offers something else: a contemplative, patient record of two and a half years spent waiting for the story to reveal itself.
🎬 Real Life is now streaming on YouTube.
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